A light played guide to the searchers after the Shroud, a will-o-wisp, an unnatural flame, one more magical thing in place full of otherworldly influences. Ezrah watched for the usual tells and could find none of them. Light without smoke, without scent, without source. Trap that sort of sorcery in a bottle and gold would rain from the sky no doubt, not that gold was the real object of Ezrah's peculiar lusts. This place, all of it, reeked of something beyond the normal mode and matter of the world, Ezrah could nearly taste it, a queer tang in the air and a charge that stood hair on end. Ezrah was used to the wonders the mundane world provided, the miracles the physical world conjured for all those with a mind to search them out. But this? this thing that sang to the fool in his blood, he could hear nothing mundane in the melody, nothing so low as to be physical, fleshy. The sensation enticed and repelled in nearly equal measure, full of the thrill of forbidden footsteps on holy ground and the joy of blasphemy.
Dark eyes glared at the floating light that led the children ever deeper into the catacombs. Ezrah held himself to the groups periphery, nearest the rear, trailing cautiously at the murky border born of the wisp's light. Thrill of magic in the air or no, he didn't care for this thing, for this particular manifestation of the Shroud's mystic prowess, it smelled too strongly of fairy stories. Ezrah had always had a soft spot for a good yarn, probably always would, weaned as he was on mysticism. But the Crone had a wicked sense of humor, and she'd never spared him the real venom that lurked beneath the cloying sweetness of any fairy tale. Happy endings were myths, like as not. The light never led the lost child back home, it led him into the arms of slavers or the teeth of fouler things. Ezrah expected no different from this one. Would it be the teeth of some other sort of low-dwelling creature, a trap or pit of pointy, patient death? Hard to say really, these cultists were inventive in nothing el-
The sound of footsteps on stone died instantly. Ezrah froze, locked for a moment in utter darkness. The sudden silence drew on out, aiming to strangle the boy and set the panic running high in his system. The others? in the darkness Ezrah couldn't hear the others, he hadn't realized how much he'd miss the sound of their breathing, their movement. Now the quiet was a living thing, a monster as vast as the darkness, and Ezrah dare not make a sound. A man appeared before him and even without light, Ezrah could see him, every detail, every wrinkle, every seam in the finery of his robes, the glitter of the rings on his fingers. Gray as any photograph but rendered in fine detail. The High Magus.... Ezrah scowled and sank deeper within himself. Dead men and darkness? these were things of dreams, not something real. Witchery then... but good witchery, and Ezrah could see no flaw in it, no little gaff to give away the game involved. The old man spoke, Sandovaal's revenant, spoke in a voice that demanded total attention, a voice like thunder in the dark even though he merely whispered.
"You little fool. That is all you are, you and all the rest. Fools dancing to the strings plucked by a madman. Well, they rent me to pieces for my blasphemy. It seems only appropriate..."
Oh isn't that precious, it thinks we worship it. Ezrah didn't get to enjoy his high handed heresy for very long, the bitter victory stripped from him as the darkness took hold, cords bound to each of his limbs and pulling, pulling, pulling tighter. The burning ache of it tore a strangled cry from the boy as he bucked against his bonds, offering up one supreme moment of ferocious struggle before casting that tack aside and trying another. Sandovaal had been quartered? but this was not quartering, this was a slow stretching on the rack. Little difference in the end, but it gave him time at least, time to plot a way out of this madness. The revenant droned on, but Ezrah found his words less and less compelling, less meaningful. The bindings digging into his flesh, the sweet agony as they pulled further and further apart, these things had meaning, these things demanded attention.
Witchery, it was only witchery, it must be. Somewhere he had another body, a body trapped in dark catacombs but a body unbounded. He could nearly remember it, remember the shape of it, and he knew there must be a way back to that place. This was not real, was not real, was not- sweet fucking god's blood! The bonds pulled tighter, someone gave the rack's wheel a full turn and Ezrah could almost hear his tendons snapping. Fine, fine then! So this was real enough, this sorcery had a cutting edge, maybe sharp enough to cut his life away from him. But even deep magic must have limits, boundaries, or else there'd be no point to tricks and subterfuge, the truly omnipotent need not play games. There must be sacrifice, yes? An exchange of some sort, even if the exchange did not seem equivalent. The logic seemed sound enough to Ezrah's mind, framed in fire as it was, ringed with the spears of his body's protests. His breaths grew more ragged, lungs straining against the growing pressure. Cold sweat soaked into his clothing, full of the scent of his body's terror.
For a moment, Ezrah lost hold of his mind, felt it falter and slip beneath the lapping waves of torment. But when it surfaced... it was separate, placed high on a shelf somewhere, cold, aloof and calculating, watching the screaming, wailing flesh. Ezrah shuddered with it, the sense of splitting, three places at once, three bodies, each felt, each known. In one, cold stone on his face, cold stone beneath him, and the sounds of screaming children. In another, the tearing of the unseen binds, the cruel rack stretching, stretching, stretching thin. The last on the high place, free and flying, no flesh here, no mind here, just presence and power and majesty. He could feel the ebb and flow of some queer power, glorious, intoxicating, black and thick as ink, thick as blood. He reveled in it, reached for it, and found... found nothing. A twinge of desperation lit up the boy's mind, a fleeting, frantic thing like a swimmer struggling for air. It was there... there! He could see it, taste it even! But couldn't touch. So close... so fucking close! He just needed a road, a bridge a- godsdammit that old bastard was still yammering on!
Sandovaal's shade spoke, but the boy in his thrall was well past listening. How could even the Magus' shade be so blind? So ignorant to the glory of what was happening all around him?! Who could prattle on about the past from the jaws of the future!? Why couldn't he make himself useful?! Useful... yes....
The path between the high mind and the bound flesh was clear enough... easy to traverse even with the pain, pain was no stranger. Ezrah's thoughts flickered and the bound body ceased its whimpering, a weak chuckling taking its place. The revenant drew closer, its ire peaking at this newest insolence, but when the boy raised his eyes to it, they were full of a sorrowful contrition... full of regret and abeyance... until the very moment they hardened.
"I... I'm a fool... we were fools, mad fools yes," Sandovaal drew closer to the boy, leaned in to better hear his surrender and to savor the proud boy's fall.
"So let a mad fool... pay his due... TO THE FOOL KING!"
The high mind reached out, and pressed. In one white hot moment, Ezrah heard his left shoulder give a pop that turned his stomach as it pulled from his socket. A tenfold moment of pain paid, for a few extra inches of reach. The scream on his lips became a roar, became a grunt, as his teeth sank home, digging deep into their target, tearing into the revenant's gray, leathery throat. The ghost's admonishments died and gave way to wet, gurgling sounds, and Ezrah's mouth filled with a salty, coppery tang. He drank deeply, sucking down what incarnadine sap could still leak from an old and gnarled tree. The High Magus would've approved. Such was the way. A fool could be borne for even a moment of value, and a bellyful of blood was worth it if even a morsel of real nourishment could be found.
Ezrah's jaw never loosened its grip, even as the bonds unwound from his limbs and dropped him to the floor of his prison in an ungraceful heap. The left arm he couldn't move, could barely feel, but the others heeded his call after some protest. He pushed against, the old man's chest, his own neck and face flush with strain, but the flesh gave way soon enough, tissue and tendon tearing away, snapping wetly. Ezrah chewed and swallowed around gasping breaths, mouth and jaw dripping crimson. He steadied himself for a moment before examining the corpse he straddled, throat opened wide, a queer, bright red flower, "Thank you elder father, your gift is not in vain, show me the road...."
The bloodied boy slipped the knife from his boot and set about his work. It was difficult going with only one hand, but he had plenty of time and plenty of patience. The steel carved a road down from the old man?s throat, down his chest, spanning from nape to navel, the withered flesh and dry fabric cut clean. The revenant's flesh may have been ashen, but the colors of his insides were familiar enough. The breastbone gave some small trouble, but Ezrah knew the proper levers to brace against, how to throw his weight until the sturdy plate cracked. What was necessary... what was useful. He could see the image of it so clearly in his mind, a pattern, a diagram, for a door, a gate of sorts. Elbow deep in the corpse of an old, discarded god, Ezrah hummed and muttered his chants. The power wasn't in the words... no, nor the ritual, but in the psyche. Words and rituals were merely aids, ways to sniff out the way forward....
"Seven sevenths rent asunder, twice aflame and thrice a wonder. Blood and bone and bile and marrow, hurry herald, ride and harrow. Weep and keen and cull the killing, seedling seek the sower willing...."
Ezrah separated the lungs and lay them gently astride the corpse, one to either side. He wound a length of the intestines up like rope and with methodical care arrayed it in twisting loops, a circle to surround the form. He drew his little knife around the skull and peeled the grey flesh away, tossing it aside. He brought the butt of his knife down hard, once, twice, three times, until the crack grew wide enough to accept his fingers. He made a paste of what his fingers found there, and with his new inkwell brimming, he began to draw. The symbols stood vigil in his mind, blazing things, so obvious, so natural, things half remembered, things invented, all of them glorious. As he drew he droned on, words tinged with a light musical lilt, a waltzing cadence that his body rocked gently to.
"Skin and stretch and saw and solder, melt and muddy, rot and molder. Kinsman carry me to power, braid for me a bloody bower. Drink and dance and die and whiter, summon forth your ire hither, and show me the way forward!"
The glee in Ezrah's chest grew, a warm thing stoked and bellowed until it flamed and he found himself humming a tune he did not know. Almost there, almost there, the pattern of it was nearly complete! The pattern that filled his skull to the brim and threatened to blot all else unless it was made real. His patient butchery continued, the head cut away from the neck, one arm removed at the shoulder, the other at the elbow, both legs taken at the knee. Crushing the pelvis bone was difficult, but the eagerness in Ezrah's veins lent him strength. The hip bone broken, one meaty socket severed and set aside. One more cut into the torso, and the work was complete, a work of hours in what felt like minutes. Seven pieces, the seven chunks of the High Magus body that the horses? flight had wrought. Each turned at an angle, to form an image of sorts in the blood and stinking muck.
Ezrah snapped off a rib bone and steadied the trembling his hands, the frantic energy coursing through him. This must work, this must work! His humming and droning tapered off, and his words grew firm, resolute.
"Blood...," he bit his thumb, teased forth a small flow of fresh blood and painted a line from his forehead down to his nose.
"Bone...," he drew the tip of the rib bone down the center of his face.
"Bile...," He plunged the bone into the fleshy sack of the revenant's stomach and brought forth something that steamed and sizzled, this he drew down his face as well, even though it burned and bit at his skin.
"Marrow...," from the rib bone's jagged end, he sucked out a gritty meat, chewed it until it became sludge, spat it out and marked himself with it as well.
"Fleshy compass, gruesome arrow, show me the way forward!" A fierce spasm twisted Ezrah's body for a moment, stole the breath from his lungs, and dwarfed the pain of the rack for a few long seconds. But when it passed, it left something in its wake... a fourth mind, a fourth presence, and the path towards it was clear....
Ezrah felt himself standing, though his body felt strange, bent in a manner he was not used to, shaped incorrectly. He was whistling, whistling a tune that came to his lips with ease. One hand lay over a basin, and he could feel the weakness in it, the loss of blood. The other held a knife, a knife that beckoned even as the whistling became a cackle. He could see the catacombs once more, and the bodies of children writhing under his thrall... one of those bodies was his own. Ezrah howled and whooped from within the black confines of his prison, and a righteous fury shone from beneath heavy lidded, black eyes. Voice strained and husky, Ezrah roared, a deafening sound that shook all the darkness he'd come to know so well, "WITCH! Witch you've had your fun! RELEASE ME! Or shall we make a garden together and see what nightmares grow there!"
The triumph burned bright in Ezrah's breast even as the thin connection grew all the fainter and more tenuous. No matter, what could be found once could be found again.
